Syria is losing the information war against the West, Bashar al-Assad has
claimed, as he said that widely derided parliamentary elections showed that
most of the country still supported him.

In his first interview with a foreign media organisation this year, he told Russian television: “They outplayed us... at the very beginning of the crisis - invented stories.”

He said that the West had “released a large amount of false information”, adding “We cannot win this [information] war... the main thing is to win in real life”.

Mr Assad said that the elections showed the extent of the backing for the state's institutions.

"The Syrian people are not scared of the threats of terrorists who have tried to wreck the elections or even prevent us from holding them," he said. "The polling stations show the opinion of the people. It is a serious message for everyone both inside the country and also beyond its borders."

He added that the results showed the Syrian people "are until now supporting the policy of reform".

The full results of the elections have yet to be published, and in any case have been overshadowed by a recent renewal of heavily armed clashes in central and northern Syria. On Monday, rebel forces drove regime troops out of the town of Rastan, between Homs and Hama, and they have also re-established control over parts of Idlib province.

The regime has hit back, though, attacking a funeral in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Idlib despite the presence of United Nations observers on Tuesday and later, according to activists, storming the town of Shammas, near Homs, and massacring around 20 men there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the men had been "summarily executed", putting the number of dead at 15.

The international human rights group Avaaz said one of its contacts had counted at least 21 bodies.

"We saw army troops, security forces and Shabiha militia storming the neighbourhood, opening arbitrarily shooting at residents and beating them," one resident named as Abdul said. "Despite the gunfire eventually stopping, no one dared to leave their houses for two hours.

"I then left my house to find out that the army forces had killed all the men in the houses they entered. There were deformed bodies that we could not identify. I counted at least 21 deaths, all men. This number could be much larger since I could not go into all the houses because snipers are today still in the area and they are shooting at everyone passing."

Following the funeral shooting in Khan Sheikhun, the six UN observers there were forced to take shelter with the Free Syrian Army in the town after three of their cars were struck by a roadside bomb. They were evacuated yesterday.